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AMD strengthening what they can

I was excited to hear that AMD is "considering" pimpin' up some of its *cough* lower-end CPUs. According to DigiTimes, the 2600+ will come to sport a 333MHz FSB, and all of their T-bred CPUs down to the 1700+ will be moving to a 0.13 micron fab. The extension of the 2600+ to support the 333MHz FSB may reflect yield problems at the company. Except to major OEMs, their high-end CPUs launched on 10/1 still aren't flowing as fast as the company would like. The 2700+ and 2800+ currently do not appear on PriceWatch, nor the Ars Shopping Engine, nor a handful of other vendor sites.

With the reported two new strategies, AMD may be able to reduce production costs for its Athlon XP line and at the same time expand market acceptance for its higher-end products. Though currently its Athlon XP 2600+, 2700+ and 2800+ are still quoted at relatively higher prices, the market predicted that AMD is likely to cut prices to a more competitive level after Intel introduces its 3.06GHz Pentium 4 processor on November 14, which may in turn help boost Christmas buying.

Heh, not to mention the increased overclocking potential of the lower-end CPUs. It will be interesting to see what those units can do once the transition is made.

Ken Fisher / Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation.